Join TSJ for a Teach-In on the April 1 SHUT IT DOWN! action

Saturday March 26th from 5 to 7 pm UIC College of Education 1040 W. Harrison St. Chicago, IL

We'll have Child Care and Refreshments

Room 3427

April 1 in Chicago will be a day of mass action against austerity politics, racist violence, anti-immigrant and Islamaphobic attacks, the savaging of human needs in Illinois, growing poverty, attempts to smash unions, and economic violence against the vast majority of people in our state. And, it will be a day FOR justice, redistribution of wealth, progressive revenue solutions, full funding of our schools and human needs, and racial and social justice.

This Teach-In will address WHY Teachers for Social Justice and so many others in Chicago, from labor (e.g., CTU), education justice organizations, racial justice groups (e.g., Black Youth Project-100), community organizations (e.g., Kenwood Oakland Community Organization), economic justice groups (e.g., Fight for 15), religious progressives (e.g., ARISE-Chicago), and many others are coming together April 1 to #ShutDownChi!

What are the connections between all these issues and movements and how does April 1 relate to our larger efforts to create a new world that is possible and necessary?

How can you help organize in your workplace/community/school to build for April 1 and make this an historic day in Chicago as we fight for a better future?

Come to the Teach-In to discuss and learn about these issues and their interconnections, and to help plan and organize for April 1.

More than 100,000 workers in the state of Illinois are out of a contract and are bargaining directly with our adversaries—Governor Bruce Rauner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, bankers and billionaires like Ken Griffin, who are calling for school closings, university closings, budget cuts, lower wages for workers and restrictions on collective bargaining.

Racial injustice fuels the prison industrial complex by sending poor Black and brown men and women to prison each day. Chronic disinvestment has caused poverty in the state to grow considerably. Law enforcement agencies are under federal scrutiny for the murder of unarmed people and the mentally ill. Child-care workers and low-income parents are under attack. Yet multimillion-dollar arenas, museums and millionaire condos are being built all around us.

Tax cuts for those with the highest incomes, an unfair, regressive flat-tax system, and corporate loopholes galore have put Illinois in this fiscal distress. In Chicago, the mayor refuses to renegotiate bad deals with the banks profiting off of our “broke on purpose” schools. The mayor's TIF program siphons money from schools, parks, libraries and other public needs and hands it to wealthy developers. Rahm's handpicked board of education wastes millions on excessive testing and mismanagement while they cut and cut from school budgets. Enough is enough!